


I'll See You Again

by Boykingsofhell (Alexis_Oreilly)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sam's just a little monster-ish in this one, this isn't HBO SPN but I was inspired by it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27737353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexis_Oreilly/pseuds/Boykingsofhell
Summary: Sam doesn't tell Dad he's going away to Stanford. Instead, he writes a letter.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Kudos: 9





	I'll See You Again

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a writing sprint, and it's not been edited. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy! Please leave a comment if you liked it or have any thoughts :)

Sam doesn’t tell dad he’s going to Stanford. Call him paranoid, but he can think of nothing worse than dad being able to track him down at a moment’s notice, and that’s counting the flames that lick at the side of his crib in his dreams.

Instead, he writes a letter.

Dad,  
I know you’re going to be mad, but don’t take it out on Dean. It wasn’t his fault. I’m going to college. I’ve already switched cells, you won’t be able to reach me, so don’t try. Don’t try to find me. Tell Dean I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come to this.

Love,

Your son, Sam.

He leaves it on the bed of the motel when Dad and Dean are out on a hunt, having already endured light-hearted teasing from Dean for being more interested in books than monsters, and less light-hearted yelling from Dad. 

They were always going to part on bad terms. At least this way, he’s avoided the brunt of it. Sitting on the cracked plastic bus seats with everything he owns in a duffel on the seat next to him, he imagines telling his Dad he got into Stanford, the look on his face.

Dad saying he was proud, that he would let Sam go, but he would visit. He imagines Dad sharing a beer in celebration. Him writing down the address so he knew where to visit.

It takes less than ten seconds for the fantasy to fade.

Sam tells himself he left a letter because it was easier, not because he was afraid.

He leans his head against the vibrating glass of the old bus as it pulls away from the station. Doesn’t move as city melts to suburbs, and suburbs melt to barren summer countryside. An old guy sits next to him, dressed up in a suit and a dubious wig. Sam moves his stuff and doesn’t speak a word. 

A few hours in and Sam’s itching to move, rumble of the bus far less soothing than the purr of the impala cruising down the highway. Dean and Dan sitting in the front, him in the back, studying. Always studying.

Dean.

Sam knew what he was doing to Dean. He was leaving Dean alone with Dad, though Dean wouldn’t see that as a punishment in the same way Sam would. 

There were a lot of things him and Dean didn’t see the same way. The fear in Dean’s eyes when Sam knew something just a bit before he should have. When his fingertips caught fire in the hot summer sun and he put them out before Dad could see. The way his eyes flashed dark when he was angry, a tad too close to something Dean and Dad had hunted when Sam was too small to understand that monsters didn’t just live under the bed. 

This was another of those things. 

He told Dean, before he left. He hadn’t expected Dean to be happy about it, and he wasn’t. With anger in his face and hurt in his eyes, Dean had told him not to come back.

Then he stopped Sam, halfway out the door, and pulled him into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” Dean had muttered against his shoulder. Of course, Dean wasn’t capable of experiencing genuine emotion for more than ten seconds at a time, so he clapped him on the shoulder and shoved him out the door with an easy, pained grin. 

Sam hesitated, duffle bag slung over his shoulder in a white-knuckle grip. “Don’t tell dad I told you.”

Out of everything they’d fought over, this was the one rule they’d always agreed on.

Dean’s grin slipped and his shoulders tightened. “I won’t. You can’t call, you know that?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on it.”

Dean looked like he was about to say something else, then stopped. “I guess I’ll see you around, Sammy.”

“See you, Dean.”

And for five years, he doesn’t.


End file.
